Archer #2
No words necessary, Minka merely nods, releasing me from where I stand, then she goes back to studying her newest patient.
So, I start toward the car and mentally catalog every detail available before I arrive.
Clay’s dark hair, styled perfectly with a part off to the side, and the comb lines are still visible from when he neatened it.
His freshly shaved jaw, as smooth as our vic’s, and long brown lashes coming down to contrast with his cheeks.
Even at night, they’re impossible not to see.
His shirt is stained red, so much fucking red, that if I didn’t know better, I’d wonder if he was the one bleeding, and as my eyes track down, I find his shaking hands, stained and trembling as he rubs his palms together.
“Officer Clay?” I come to a stop just four feet in front of him and wait.
Typically, I might be impatient for a subordinate’s respectful attention.
For his eyes slinging up to mine, and his spine snapping straight as he bounds to his feet.
But not this one. Not today. Because I know this kid took a bullet, too, not that hell of a long time ago.
Some memories stick, and some experiences are already rife with scars and mental fuckery.
He doesn’t react to our arrival. He doesn’t look up from his hands, his thumbs rubbing through the red to reveal lighter spots of skin. So, I clear my throat and try again. “Brady?”
He starts and sniffs, glancing up and locking eyes with mine.
Then Fletch. Then, as though his thoughts finally catch up, he shoves out of the car and whips his hands behind his back.
“Sorry, sirs.” He hardens his jaw, completely incapable of picking just one of us to look at.
He flitters back and forth, back and forth.
Then he drops his gaze and studies the ground instead. “I didn’t see you approach.”
“Rest easy, kid.” I come another step closer. “I understand you were on scene for this one. Which means we’re going to need your help to piece it all together. You up to the task?”
“Yes, sir.” He swallows, telegraphing more than just nerves. “I’ll make my statement verbally, and again in writing. I’ll do my best to—”
“Did you see who shot him?” Fletch steps forward, aligning our shoulders once more, his shirt brushing against mine and his shadowed, stubbled jaw in my peripheral.
“We need to know if we’ve gotta rush out and hunt down a killer who might look for more victims, or if this crime was personal. One-and-done, so to speak.”
“No, I…” He shakes his head gulps. “I heard the gunshots. Three of them. It’s a quiet night, so when it all started, I heard it in the air. I flipped on the lights and came in hot. I radioed it in and arrived approximately one minute after the first round.”
“You timed it?” Fletch questions. “While driving hot, you timed how long it took?”
“When I was on the radio,” he rasps. “My old TO drilled that into me a lot, to always ground myself by checking the time. So when I arrived and picked up the radio again to inform dispatch, I looked again.”
“Where’s your TO nowadays?” I make a show of looking around, past the media vans already crowding the bay and the gentle current lapping at the pebbled edge of the inlet. “Lunch break?”
His baby face warms, the red shade sprinting along his neck and past the tight collar of his shirt. I almost feel bad, taunting the kid for the sake of a reaction. But red is legions better than white. Warmth is preferable to paleness.
“N-no, sir.” His eyes shift nervously past us. “My TO was on his way out when I came in. I was his last assignment before retirement.”
“No partner?”
“Sometimes I get one on loan. Had one that was becoming kinda consistent early this year, but then I had to take time off and they reassigned him.”
Because he got shot. On our watch.
“So you’re working this beat at night,” Fletch wonders. “Alone.”
And just like that, Clay’s coloring drops away and his teeth clench shut. “I realize I put myself in danger by responding to a gunfight without backup. I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly, and when I saw the vic and his friend on the ground, I reacted.”
“The friend is already at the hospital? Wounded?”
He nods. “I attempted to plug the male vic’s wound, since he was bleeding so fast, and while I did that, I radioed for medics for the female vic. It took about five minutes from when I first got boots on the ground until ambos arrived on scene.”
“How long until the DB’s heart stopped beating?
” Fletch’s voice is hard and his inflection, cold.
But the details matter, and reciting them, tearing the emotion out of them, is how we decrease the young officer’s mental turmoil.
Hopefully. “Had to be less than five, or the medics would’ve taken him, too. ”
“About two. I think… I…” He licks his lips, his jaw gritting over his flexing cheeks. “Maybe the bullet nicked his heart, because I stuck my finger in to stop the bleeding. I felt his pulse for a bit.”
And then you didn’t.
“I don’t know if I did the right thing,” he murmurs. “Probably not supposed to even touch him, especially since I’m not a doctor. But I was trying to help and—”
“You did good.” I set my hands on my hips and hold his terrified stare for as long as it takes for him to inhale another breath.
For his lungs, seized and shaky, to unclench and refill.
“You’re not a doctor, Officer Clay, and you’re not even a veteran cop.
You’re a guy just a few years older than our vic, working beat at midnight, alone.
You did the best you could with the resources you had. ”
“I didn’t save him.”
“We can’t save them all. I wish we could.” I lift my chin, nodding in his direction. “If you stay as pale as you are right now, you’ll force me to consider your psychological state. Especially in light of your recent wound and the similarities between that and the case you stumbled upon tonight.”
“M-mine?” He brings a hand around and unconsciously rubs the scar hidden beneath his shirt. “My injury was a while back, Detective. I’m fine. If you’re worried—”
“I’m worried you’re comparing his night to the one you had in February. He didn’t make it, but you did.”
“I made it because you were there to help.” He glances at Fletch. “You packed my wound. And Ms. Swanson. And Chief Mayet.” He comes back to me. “I was lucky. But this kid… tonight…” He shrugs. “Not so lucky. Sucks.”
“Mmm.” Fletch rolls his bottom lip between his thumb and finger. “You saw no one besides the two who were hit?”
“I heard a car peeling away. And footsteps. Opposite directions,” he murmurs. “Means there were witnesses, more than one, but they split up.”
“And the other vic?” I wonder. “The injured one.”
“Female. Late teens, I think. She was dazed and dropping in and out of consciousness for the few minutes I had with her. I put my focus into the male at first, since he appeared more in need of my help, but I was trying to talk to her, too. I was asking her questions.”
“Her name?”
“She didn’t answer. Couldn’t,” he clarifies. “She was dizzy, and suffered a lac on her temple that kinda makes me think she fell and hit her head after she was shot. I only had a second to decide who to help first, and she wasn’t gushing blood the way he was, so I picked him.”
“She made it to the hospital alive. Means you did the right thing.” I cast my gaze back toward our scene. Specifically, to the markers on the ground and the trail of blood leading away from our vic. “They’re too young to be mixed up in this kind of shit.”
“Recover a weapon?” Fletch questions.
“No, sir. I’ve seen no weapons, no other responding officers have reported finding one, and the vics were empty-handed when I arrived.” He pauses, wrinkling his nose and studying the ground between us.
Tension pulses in waves, warming the already warm air and landing against my chest like a physical blow.
Fletch and I have had ample experience dealing with kids just like him, those who have something to say, but they’re not quite sure how to say it. So we wait. We let the silence hang for two—three, four, five—beats of my heart. We stand in passive unity, in sync, and without hesitation.
Until finally, Clay brings his gaze up again.
“I’m okay, Detectives. I know you’re thinking I was the wrong guy who landed on the wrong case, and I know it’s kinda similar—this one and mine. But I’m not a civilian, and I’m not a kid. I’d like you not to assume I’m about to fall apart.”
“Are you?” Fletch presses. “Gonna fall apart.”
He broadens his shoulders, shaking his head gently from side to side. “No, sir. I’m comparing, I guess. It’s human nature. But I won’t drop the ball on this. I want you to find whoever hurt him, and if you have more questions, I want you to ask me and not worry about my mental state.”
“It’s our job to worry about that stuff.
” I glance up as sirens whoop in the air and emergency personnel rush off to somewhere else.
They speed toward someone else’s worst day ever.
“You have another thirty years left on the job, Officer Clay. Gotta stop you from washing out early, so you don’t miss out on the truly disturbing shit.
” I flash a teasing grin and watch as the tension slowly fades from his face.
Slowly. He’s wound so fucking tight, if he doesn’t bend soon, he’s gonna break.
“We’ll come find you again. Probably tomorrow, once we’ve got our case notes straightened out and need you to fill in the blanks.
Talk to your CO if you’re feeling a certain way about all this.
Debrief with the department shrink if you’ve gotta.
Detective Fletcher and I will be available if either of them needs us. ”
“Yes, sir.” He swallows again, his throat bobbing and his Adam’s apple shifting. “I’ll be ready to take your calls.”
I turn on my heel to walk back to the doctors. But Fletch stays put.
“You got a girl, Officer Clay?”
Stunned, I swing back around again.